1.
Nebraska
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Nebraska /nᵻˈbræskə/ is a state that lies in both the Great Plains and the Midwestern United States. Its area is just over 77,220 sq mi with almost 1.9 million people and its largest city is Omaha, which is on the Missouri River. The state is crossed by many trails and was explored by the Lewis. Nebraska was admitted as the 37th state of the United States in 1867 and it is the only state in the United States whose legislature is unicameral and officially nonpartisan. Nebraska is composed of two major regions, the Dissected Till Plains and the Great Plains. The Dissected Till Plains is a region of rolling hills. The Great Plains occupy most of western Nebraska, characterized by treeless prairie, the state has a large agriculture sector and is a major producer of beef, pork, corn, and soybeans. Two major climatic zones are represented in Nebraska, the half of the state has a humid continental climate, and the western half. Indigenous peoples lived in the region of present-day Nebraska for thousands of years before European exploration. The historic tribes in the state included the Omaha, Missouria, Ponca, Pawnee, Otoe, when European exploration, trade, and settlement began, both Spain and France sought to control the region. In the 1690s, Spain established trade connections with the Apaches, by 1703, France had developed a regular trade with the native peoples along the Missouri River in Nebraska, and by 1719 had signed treaties with several of these peoples. After war broke out between the two countries, Spain dispatched an expedition to Nebraska under Lieutenant General Pedro de Villasur in 1720. The party was attacked and destroyed near present-day Columbus by a force of Pawnees and Otoes. The massacre of the Villasur expedition effectively put an end to Spanish exploration of Nebraska for the remainder of the 18th century, in 1762, during the Seven Years War, France ceded the Louisiana territory to Spain. Frances withdrawal from the area left Britain and Spain competing for dominance along the Mississippi, by 1773, later that year, Mackays party built a trading post, dubbed Fort Carlos IV, near present-day Homer. In 1819, the United States established Fort Atkinson as the first U. S. Army post west of the Missouri River, the army abandoned the fort in 1827 as migration moved further west. European-American settlement did not begin in any numbers until after 1848, on May 30,1854, the US Congress created the Kansas and the Nebraska territories, divided by the Parallel 40° North, under the Kansas–Nebraska Act. The Nebraska Territory included parts of the current states of Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, the territorial capital of Nebraska was Omaha
2.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
3.
United States Forest Service
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The United States Forest Service is an agency of the U. S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nations 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands, which encompass 193 million acres. Major divisions of the include the National Forest System, State and Private Forestry, Business Operations. Managing approximately 25% of federal lands, it is the major national land agency that is outside the U. S. Department of the Interior. The concept of the National Forests was born from Theodore Roosevelt’s conservation group, Boone and Crockett Club, in 1876, Congress created the office of Special Agent in the Department of Agriculture to assess the quality and conditions of forests in the United States. Hough was appointed the head of the office, in 1881, the office was expanded into the newly formed Division of Forestry. The Forest Reserve Act of 1891 authorized withdrawing land from the domain as forest reserves. In 1901, the Division of Forestry was renamed the Bureau of Forestry, gifford Pinchot was the first United States Chief Forester in the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. As of 2009, the Forest Service has a budget authority of $5.5 billion. The Forest Service employs 34,250 employees in 750 locations, including 10,050 firefighters,737 law enforcement personnel, and 500 scientists. The mission of the Forest Service is To sustain the health, diversity and its motto is Caring for the land and serving people. As the lead agency in natural resource conservation, the US Forest Service provides leadership in the protection, management, and use of the nations forest, rangeland. The agencys ecosystem approach to management integrates ecological, economic, and social factors to maintain and enhance the quality of the environment to meet current, the everyday work of the Forest Service balances resource extraction, resource protection, and providing recreation.5 billion trees per year. Further, the Forest Service fought fires on 2,996,000 acres of land in 2007, the Forest Service organization includes ranger districts, national forests, regions, research stations and research work units and the Northeastern Area Office for State and Private Forestry. Each level has responsibility for a variety of functions, the Chief of the Forest Service is a career federal employee who oversees the entire agency. The Chief reports to the Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment in the U. S. Department of Agriculture, there are five deputy chiefs for the following areas, National Forest System, State and Private Forestry, Research and Development, Business Operations, and Finance. The Forest Service Research and Development deputy area includes five stations, the Forest Products Laboratory. Station directors, like regional foresters, report to the Chief, Research stations include Northern, Pacific Northwest, Pacific Southwest, Rocky Mountain, and Southern. There are 92 research work units located at 67 sites throughout the United States, there are 80 Experimental Forests and Ranges that have been established progressively since 1908, many sites are more than 50 years old
4.
United States National Forest
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National Forest is a classification of protected and managed federal lands in the United States. The National Forest System was created by the Land Revision Act of 1891, abbot Kinney and forester Theodore Lukens were key spokesmen for the effort. In the United States there are 155 National Forests containing almost 190 million acres of land and these lands comprise 8.5 percent of the total land area of the United States, an area about the size of Texas. Some 87 percent of National Forest land lies west of the Mississippi River in the ranges of the Western United States. Alaska has 12 percent of all National Forest lands, the U. S. Forest Service also manages all of the United States National Grasslands, and around half of the United States National Recreation Areas. There are two different types of forests within the National Forest system. Those east of the Great Plains in the Midwestern and Eastern United States were primarily acquired by the government since 1891. The land had long been in the domain and sometimes repeatedly logged since colonial times. These are mostly lands that were kept in the domain, with the exception of inholdings. Land management of these areas focuses on conservation, timber harvesting, livestock grazing, watershed protection, wildlife, unlike national parks and other federal lands managed by the National Park Service, extraction of natural resources from national forests is permitted, and in many cases encouraged. National Forests are categorized by the U. S. as IUCN Category VI protected areas, however, the first-designated wilderness areas, and some of the largest, are on National Forest lands. There are management decision conflicts between conservationists and environmentalists, and natural resource extraction companies and lobbies, over the protection and/or use of National Forest lands, many ski resorts and summer resorts operate on leased land in National Forests
5.
Sandhills (Nebraska)
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The Sandhills, often written Sand Hills, is a region of mixed-grass prairie on grass-stabilized sand dunes in north-central Nebraska, covering just over one quarter of the state. The dunes were designated a National Natural Landmark in 1984. The sandhills are found in Arthur, Blaine, Brown, Cherry, Custer, Garden, Garfield, Grant, Holt, Hooker, Lincoln, Keith, Logan, Loup, McPherson, Morrill, Rock, Sheridan, Thomas, and Wheeler counties. The boundaries of the Sandhills are variously defined by different organizations, depending on the definition, the regions area can be as small as 19,600 mi2 or as large as 23,600 mi2. Dunes in the Sandhills may exceed 330 ft in height, the average elevation of the region gradually increases from about 1,800 ft in the east to about 3,600 ft in the west. The Sandhills sit atop the massive Ogallala Aquifer, thus both temporary and permanent shallow lakes are common in low-lying valleys between the grass-stabilized dunes prevalent in the Sandhills. The eastern and central sections of the region are drained by tributaries of the Loup River, the World Wide Fund for Nature designated the Sandhills as an ecoregion, distinct from other grasslands of the Great Plains. According to their assessment, as much as 85% of the ecoregion is intact natural habitat and this is chiefly due to the lack of crop production, most of the Sandhills land has never been plowed. Much of the area was a desert, with desert-like conditions extending to several other states. The plant-anchored dunes of the Sandhills were long considered an irreclaimable desert, in the 1870s, cattlemen began to discover their potential as rangeland for Longhorn cattle. The fragility of the soil makes the area unsuitable for cultivation of crops. Unsuccessful attempts at farming were made in the region in the late 1870s, some development of cropland agriculture in the modern era has occurred through the use of center-pivot irrigation systems. The 1904 Kinkaid Act allowed homesteaders to claim 640 acres of land, nearly nine million acres were successfully claimed by Kinkaiders between 1910 and 1917. Some of the Kinkaiders attempted to farm, but these attempts generally failed and this included Nebraskas largest black settlement, DeWitty, which was located in southeast Cherry County until the 1930s. Many of the largest ranches broke up about the time due to regulations against fencing federal range lands. In the 21st century, the Sandhills are a cattle ranching area. The population of the region continues to decline as older generations die out, however, a number of small towns remain in the region. As the largest and most intricate wetland ecosystem in the United States, minimal crop production has led to limited land fragmentation, the resulting extensive and continuous habitat for plant and animal species has largely preserved the biodiversity of the area
6.
Great Plains
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The region is known for supporting extensive cattle ranching and dry farming. The Canadian portion of the Plains is known as the Prairies, some geographers include some territory of northern Mexico in the Plains, but many stop at the Rio Grande. The term Great Plains is used in the United States to describe a sub-section of the even more vast Interior Plains physiographic division and it also has currency as a region of human geography, referring to the Plains Indians or the Plains States. There is no region referred to as the Great Plains in The Atlas of Canada, in terms of human geography, the term prairie is more commonly used in Canada, and the region is known as the Prairie Provinces or simply the Prairies. The region is about 500 mi east to west and 2,000 mi north to south, much of the region was home to American bison herds until they were hunted to near extinction during the mid/late 19th century. It has an area of approximately 500,000 sq mi, current thinking regarding the geographic boundaries of the Great Plains is shown by this map at the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln. The term Great Plains, for the region west of about the 96th or 98th meridian, nevin Fennemans 1916 study, Physiographic Subdivision of the United States, brought the term Great Plains into more widespread usage. Before that the region was almost invariably called the High Plains, today the term High Plains is used for a subregion of the Great Plains. The Great Plains are the westernmost portion of the vast North American Interior Plains, during the Cretaceous Period, the Great Plains were covered by a shallow inland sea called the Western Interior Seaway. However, during the Late Cretaceous to the Paleocene, the seaway had begun to recede, leaving thick marine deposits. During the Cenozoic era, specifically about 25 million years ago during the Miocene and Pliocene epochs, existing forest biomes declined and grasslands became much more widespread. The grasslands provided a new niche for mammals, including many ungulates and glires, traditionally, the spread of grasslands and the development of grazers have been strongly linked. The vast majority of animals became extinct in North America at the end of the Pleistocene. In general, the Great Plains have a variety of weather through the year, with very cold and harsh winters and very hot. Wind speeds are very high, especially in winter. Grasslands are among the least protected biomes, humans have converted much of the prairies for agricultural purposes or to create pastures. The Great Plains have dust storms mostly every year or so, the 100th meridian roughly corresponds with the line that divides the Great Plains into an area that receive 20 in or more of rainfall per year and an area that receives less than 20 in. The region is subjected to extended periods of drought, high winds in the region may then generate devastating dust storms
7.
National Register of Historic Places
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The National Register of Historic Places is the United States federal governments official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation. The passage of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966 established the National Register, of the more than one million properties on the National Register,80,000 are listed individually. The remainder are contributing resources within historic districts, each year approximately 30,000 properties are added to the National Register as part of districts or by individual listings. For most of its history the National Register has been administered by the National Park Service and its goals are to help property owners and interest groups, such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation, coordinate, identify, and protect historic sites in the United States. While National Register listings are mostly symbolic, their recognition of significance provides some financial incentive to owners of listed properties, protection of the property is not guaranteed. During the nomination process, the property is evaluated in terms of the four criteria for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, the application of those criteria has been the subject of criticism by academics of history and preservation, as well as the public and politicians. Occasionally, historic sites outside the proper, but associated with the United States are also listed. Properties can be nominated in a variety of forms, including individual properties, historic districts, the Register categorizes general listings into one of five types of properties, district, site, structure, building, or object. National Register Historic Districts are defined geographical areas consisting of contributing and non-contributing properties, some properties are added automatically to the National Register when they become administered by the National Park Service. These include National Historic Landmarks, National Historic Sites, National Historical Parks, National Military Parks/Battlefields, National Memorials, on October 15,1966, the Historic Preservation Act created the National Register of Historic Places and the corresponding State Historic Preservation Offices. Initially, the National Register consisted of the National Historic Landmarks designated before the Registers creation, approval of the act, which was amended in 1980 and 1992, represented the first time the United States had a broad-based historic preservation policy. To administer the newly created National Register of Historic Places, the National Park Service of the U. S. Department of the Interior, hartzog, Jr. established an administrative division named the Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation. Hartzog charged OAHP with creating the National Register program mandated by the 1966 law, ernest Connally was the Offices first director. Within OAHP new divisions were created to deal with the National Register, the first official Keeper of the Register was William J. Murtagh, an architectural historian. During the Registers earliest years in the late 1960s and early 1970s, organization was lax and SHPOs were small, understaffed, and underfunded. A few years later in 1979, the NPS history programs affiliated with both the U. S. National Parks system and the National Register were categorized formally into two Assistant Directorates. Established were the Assistant Directorate for Archeology and Historic Preservation and the Assistant Directorate for Park Historic Preservation, from 1978 until 1981, the main agency for the National Register was the Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service of the United States Department of the Interior. In February 1983, the two assistant directorates were merged to promote efficiency and recognize the interdependency of their programs, jerry L. Rogers was selected to direct this newly merged associate directorate
8.
National Monument (United States)
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Historically, some national monuments were managed by the War Department. National monuments can be so designated through the power of the Antiquities Act of 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt used the act to declare Devils Tower in Wyoming as the first national monument. The Antiquities Act of 1906 resulted from concerns about protecting mostly prehistoric Native American ruins, the Act authorized permits for legitimate archaeological investigations and penalties for taking or destroying antiquities without permission. Among the next three monuments he proclaimed in 1906 was Petrified Forest in Arizona, another natural feature, in 1908, Roosevelt used the act to proclaim more than 800,000 acres of the Grand Canyon as a national monument. In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Katmai National Monument in Alaska, Katmai was later enlarged to nearly 2,800,000 acres by subsequent Antiquities Act proclamations and for many years was the largest national park system unit. Petrified Forest, Grand Canyon, and Katmai were among the national monuments later converted to national parks by Congress. Substantial opposition did not materialize until 1943, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed Jackson Hole National Monument in Wyoming. He did this to accept a donation of lands acquired by John D. Rockefeller, roosevelts proclamation unleashed a storm of criticism about use of the Antiquities Act to circumvent Congress. A bill abolishing Jackson Hole National Monument passed Congress but was vetoed by Roosevelt, the proclamation authority was not used again anywhere until 1996, when President Bill Clinton proclaimed the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah. This action was unpopular in Utah, and bills were introduced to further restrict the presidents authority. To date, none of them have been enacted, presidents have used the Antiquities Acts proclamation authority not only to create new national monuments but to enlarge existing ones. For example, Franklin D. Roosevelt significantly enlarged Dinosaur National Monument in 1938, lyndon B. Johnson added Ellis Island to Statue of Liberty National Monument in 1965, and Jimmy Carter made major additions to Glacier Bay and Katmai National Monuments in 1978. Marine National Monument List of U. S. National Forests List of areas in the National Park System of the United States List of U. S
9.
Agate Fossil Beds National Monument
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Agate Fossil Beds National Monument is a U. S. National Monument near Harrison, Nebraska. The main features of the monument are a valley of the Niobrara River, the area largely consists of grass-covered plains. Plants on the site include prairie sandreed, blue grama, little bluestem and needle and thread grass, the site is best known for the large number of well-preserved Miocene fossils, many of which were found at dig sites on Carnegie and University Hills. Fossils from the site, which date from about 20 million years ago, are some of the best specimens of Miocene mammals. Originally the Agate Springs Ranch, a cattle ranch, was owned by Capt. James Cook. The monuments museum collection contains more than 500 artifacts from the Cook Collection of Plains Indian artifacts. The national monument was authorized on June 5,1965, but was not established until June 14,1997, the Harold J. Cook Homestead was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. Agate Fossil Beds is maintained by the National Park Service, list of fossil sites Ashfall Fossil Beds Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument John Day Fossil Beds National Monument Scotts Bluff National Monument The National Parks, Index 2001–2003. Washington, U. S. Department of the Interior, official NPS website, Agate Fossil Beds National Monument
10.
Scotts Bluff National Monument
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Scotts Bluff National Monument in western Nebraska includes an important 19th-century landmark on the Oregon Trail and Mormon Trail. The monument is composed of five rock formations named Crown Rock, Dome Rock, Eagle Rock, Saddle Rock, Scotts Bluff County and the city of Scottsbluff, Nebraska, were named after the landmark. The collection of bluffs was first charted by non-native people in 1812 by the Astorian Expedition of fur traders traveling along the river. The expedition party noted the bluffs as the first large rock formations along the river where the Great Plains started giving way to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and their findings were not widely communicated because of the War of 1812. In 1823 explorers rediscovered the route to the Rocky Mountains, european Americans named the most prominent bluff after Hiram Scott, a fur trader who died in 1828 near the bluff. The local Native Americans had called it Me-a-pa-te, the hill that is hard to go around, fur traders, missionaries, and military expeditions began regular trips past Scotts Bluff during the 1830s. Beginning in 1841, multitudes of settlers passed by Scotts Bluff on their way west on the Emigrant Trail to Oregon, wagon trains used the bluff as a major landmark for navigation. The trail passed through Mitchell Pass, a gap in the bluffs flanked by two large cliffs, although the route through Mitchell Pass was tortuous and hazardous, many emigrants preferred this route to following the North Platte river bottom on the north side of the bluff. Passage through Mitchell Pass became a significant milestone for many trains on their way westward. In one of its first engineering deployments, the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers built a road through Mitchell Pass in the early 1850s. Use of the Emigrant Trail tapered off in 1869 after the trail was superseded by the completion of the transcontinental railroad. The town of Gering, Nebraska, was founded near the base of the bluff in 1887, separated by the river, the two cities have since grown together and now form the 6th-largest urban area in Nebraska. Developers built various trails up the bluff over the years, in the early 20th century, the National Park Service constructed a safer, more modern trail for improved access. There has always been some disagreement as to the spelling of this geomorphic feature. For example, an 1843 map titled Map of an Exploratory Expedition to the Mountains in 1842 by John C, frémont labeled the feature Scotts Bluff. Another early military map of Nebraska and the Dakotas published in 1875 by G. K, warren dropped the apostrophe and labeled the feature simply as Scotts Bluff. There are numerous examples in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in which the name has been spelled with or without an apostrophe. In a final decision by the United States Board on Geographical Names rendered on June 11,1941, the nearby town of Scottsbluff is spelled as one word
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